The Applicant has developed the Netpage system discussed in detail below and in many of the above cross reference documents. As the invention is particularly well suited to this system, it will be described in a Netpage context. However, it will be appreciated that hand-held optical sensors have broad ranging application in many different fields and the invention is not limited to its use within the Netpage system.
This Netpage system involves the interaction between a user and a computer network (or stand alone computer) via a pen and paper based interface. The ‘pen’ is an electronic stylus with a marking or non-marking nib and an optical sensor for reading a pattern of coded data on the paper (or other surface).
Netpage pens have a unique identity so that the owner of the pen can be recorded in the network. Registering the owner of each pen has a number of advantages such ‘walk-up’ printing (described in the co-pending application Ser. No. 11/193,479), signature recognition and so on. In light of this, pen owners will want to be able to quickly identify their own Netpage pen(s) from those of others.
Beyond the Netpage context, most people with quality pens consider them to be personal property and may engrave them to indicate ownership. However, this has little impact on the appearance of the pen and there is still a risk of confusion if several co-workers have the same brand of pen.